In our mudroom yesterday was this beauty. I took her photo as she posed seductively, and then I vacuumed her up with my little hand vacuum and added her to the dryer lint.

There is something beautiful about a black widow.... and that bright red hourglass shaped marking on the bulbous jet black body. I relocated a few of them out of my yard to a wooded section nearby and killed a few others last year after I discovered they were colonizing the part of my yard where I store gardening materials.

That is a fantastic picture by the way! Way better than the pics I took when I caught a few of them.

They are beautiful.

Thank you. I find Black Widows, scorpions and other potentially dangerous critters are extremely beautiful.

When I was teaching I had my students do a small bug collection as part of our lesson in Taxonomy.

I had to catch several Black Widows to show the kids what we WERE NOT collecting.

I had one grandfather come in with an AMAZING collection of butterflies. The kids were fascinated by the collection and his stories.

Thanks for the post and the memory.

Am I the only one that feels it's a tad creepy and scary?

As far as the Scorpions go, I've been stung 4 times at this point and will pass on believing that they are beautiful. I understand that they have their place, I just wish it wasn't right where I am.

quote:

Originally posted by jimb888:
Am I the only one that feels it's a tad creepy and scary?

Only when they are in places where I don't want them to be like in, or around the house. Everywhere else, they are fascinating.

I used to work night shift at a local winery and were around hundreds of them every night. Near the back where the fence facing the fields, you can stand in one spot with a flashlight and count dozens of them within 15 yards or so. You learn to avoid them by doing things like never park your bike or cart near walls, or under staircases.

I've even caught a camel spider in a jar before. Didn't think they existed in this area until I saw it for myself.

Kill that one with much fire!

Next thing you know, You'll have to call her a 'spider of color with potential marital issues'.

I saw this gorgeous lady at Fort Fisher NC today.

Excellent photo of a golden orb weaver. They are very beneficial to have around--they catch and eat many bugs.

flashguy

That is a beautiful Orb Weaver.

I try to make a nice home for all but the Black Widows, Brown Recluse, and Hobo spiders.

we have some small all white spiders in the flowers that like getting the pests.

We got used to them when living in Silicon Valley. They have very distinctive 'messy' 3-D web shapes and didn't read well enough to know they were supposed to be in enclosed spaces. At least ours didn't - had them web up over the outside hose spigot handle, in the rolls of a half-used bag of charcoal briquettes, under the handle areas on the rims of large plastic pots. Fun fun fun.

Had so many in the yard we figured we needed to make sure what the 'widower' and the kiddies looked like too, so we got some egg sacs out of some BW webs, and hatched them out. Turned out, the kiddies and daddies aren't shaped, or colored, like the 'widows.

Never got bit, learned to use good gloves when working in the yard, though.

No idea what black widows liked about Saratoga, CA, but they surely did! Here in Carolina, we have much (much!) larger spiders, but the black widows are thinner on the ground.